Exodus 32:1

But the people saw that Mosheh delayed to come down from the mount, and the people gathered together unto Aharon, when they saw that the time he had appointed to them had passed; and Satana had come, and caused them to err, and perverted their hearts with pride. And they said to him, Arise, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Mosheh the man who brought us up from the land of Mizraim, he may have been consumed in the mountain by the fire which flameth from before the Lord, (and) we know not what hath befallen him in his end.

MAKE US A GOD WHO ‘YEILCHU’ (SHALL GO — in the plural) BEFORE US. “They wished to have many gods. FOR THIS MOSES, THE MAN THAT BROUGHT US UP OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, and used to show us the way we were to go, WE KNOW NOT WHAT IT BECOME OF HIM. Now we need many gods which shall go before us.” This is Rashi’s language.
But his language does not fit [the verse, since Scripture indicates only that they wanted a leader in place of Moses, but not gods]. Rather, this verse is the key to understand the incident of the golden calf, and the thought of those who made it. For it is known that the Israelites did not think that Moses was a god, and that he did for them the signs and wonders through his own power. So what sense is there in their saying, “since Moses is gone from us, we will make ourselves gods?” Moreover, they clearly said, make us, ‘elohim’ who shall go before us — and not a deity who should give them life in this world or in the World to Come. Instead, they wanted another Moses, saying: “Moses, the man who showed us the way from Egypt until now, being in charge of the journeyings at the commandment of the Eternal by the hand of Moses,, 9:23. he is now lost to us; let us make ourselves another Moses who will show us the way at the commandment of the Eternal by his hand.” This is the reason for their mentioning, Moses, the man that brought us up, rather than saying “the G-d who brought them up,” for they needed a man of G-d. You can also understand this matter from Aaron’s answer to Moses our Teacher, when he asked him, What did this people do unto thee, that thou hast brought a great sin upon them, to which Aaron replied, And they said unto me: Make us a god etc. And I said unto them: Whosoever hath any gold, let him break it off; so they gave it to me; and I cast it into the fire., Verses 23-24. Now Aaron was apologizing to Moses and saying to him, Let not the anger of my lord wax hot,, Verse 22. and yet here he was speaking as if adding rebellion unto his sin, saying that they asked of him an idol and he made it for them with his hands! So why should Moses’ anger not burn against him! What greater sin than this is there?
But the matter is as I have stated, that they did not want the calf to be for them in place of a god who killeth and maketh alive, whom they would take upon themselves to serve as a deity; instead, they wanted to have someone in place of …

אשר ילכו לפנינו, similar to teraphim which were made by means of witchcraft, their purpose being that they should tell their believers how to act in order to obtain their needs.

עשה לנו אלוהים, “make a new Judge for us!” The people saying this to Aaron did not intend for that symbol to be an idol, but to be a supreme judge in lieu of Moses, who they thought had died on the Mountain. This is quite clear from how they justified their request when they said: כי לא כי זה האיש משה אשר העלנו מארץ מצרים לא ידענו מה היה לו, “for we do not know what has happened to the man Moses, who has brought us out of Egypt.” As far as the verse in Psalms 106,20 is concerned, i.e. וימירו את כבודם בתבנית שור אכל עשב, “they exchanged their glory for the image of a bull that feeds on grass,” that verse refers to Moses as their glory, not to G–d. They had deified Moses as he had performed so many miracles for them. When some of them prostrated themselves before that image (Exodus 32,8) this also referred to the golden calf as a substitute for Moses, not for G–d. It is not to be understood as idol worship, [although onlookers might have thought so. Ed.]